Richard Aldington
Reading edition
Richard Aldington was born in England in 1892, and educated at Dover College and London University. His first poems were published in England in 1909; Images Old and New appeared in 1915. Aldington and "H. D." (Hilda Doolittle, his American wife) are conceded to be two of the foremost imagist poets; their sensitive, firm and clean-cut lines put to shame their scores of imitators. Aldington's War and Love (1918), from which "Prelude" is taken, is somewhat more regular in pattern; the poems in this latter volume are less consciously artistic but warmer and more humanly searching.
PRELUDE
How could I love you more? I would give up Even that beauty I have loved too well That I might love you better. Alas, how poor the gifts that lovers give— I can but give you of my flesh and strength, I can but give you these few passing days And passionate words that, since our speech began, All lovers whisper in all ladies' ears. I try to think of some one lovely gift No lover yet in all the world has found; I think: If the cold sombre gods Were hot with love as I am Could they not endow you with a star And fix bright youth for ever in your limbs? Could they not give you all things that I lack? You should have loved a god; I am but dust. Yet no god loves as loves this poor frail dust.
IMAGES
I
Like a gondola of green scented fruits Drifting along the dank canals of Venice, You, O exquisite one, Have entered into my desolate city. II The blue smoke leaps Like swirling clouds of birds vanishing. So my love leaps forth toward you, Vanishes and is renewed. III A rose-yellow moon in a pale sky When the sunset is faint vermilion In the mist among the tree-boughs Art thou to me, my beloved. IV A young beech tree on the edge of the forest Stands still in the evening, Yet shudders through all its leaves in the light air And seems to fear the stars— So are you still and so tremble. V The red deer are high on the mountain, They are beyond the last pine trees. And my desires have run with them. VI The flower which the wind has shaken Is soon filled again with rain; So does my heart fill slowly with tears, O Foam-Driver, Wind-of-the-Vineyards, Until you return.
AT THE BRITISH MUSEUM
I turn the page and read: "I dream of silent verses where the rhyme Glides noiseless as an oar." The heavy musty air, the black desks, The bent heads and the rustling noises In the great dome Vanish ... And The sun hangs in the cobalt-blue sky, The boat drifts over the lake shallows, The fishes skim like umber shades through the undulating weeds, The oleanders drop their rosy petals on the lawns, And the swallows dive and swirl and whistle About the cleft battlements of Can Grande's castle....